October 6, 2012

Asks WaPo's Melinda Henneberger, presumably laying the foundation for the argument that Obamaphiles will make if he loses the election: He wanted to lose. He meant to do that. It's a brilliant and subtle strategy to rotate out of office, allow Mitt Romney to come in and do the complicated scut work of fixing the economy, taking the political damage for anything that hurts, creating a memory space within which people will feel dreamy and altruistic about Obama, who can rest and relax, swan about speaking to those who love him, collect money, and build immense longing on the part of the American people, upon which he will build his Obama 2016 campaign. He'll come back in glory. And he'll nail those debates.

This woman's husband is Bill Turque. I know him from the 1970's when he was a crime reporter for the KC Star. He wrote the bio on Al Gore. They would make Nancy Pelosi look conservative. Turque is now an education reporter for WaPo. He helped run Michelle Rhee out of DC. His old man worked for NBC News. Genetic idealogues.

Obama has no history of accomplishment. He outsourced ObamaCare and Porkulus to incompetent ReidPelosi. Arab Spring has turned into Arab Winter. He claim credit for following W's game plan after Iraq War was won. Afghanistan has turned into a quaymire, losses have multiplied. He has wasted money on his green energy cronies. Fracking was a success because he was unable to stop it.

...you're so amazed when they say that you've lost all your charm.you're coming on, you come off strongbut I see that you're weak and you're just hanging on.you secretly win every time that you losewith your passive/aggressive distortion blues.

As I said in a previous thread, he wants the title, not the job. He'll be much happier as an ex-president and I think he has no interest in running again except that he'll be seen as a failure if he loses this time and he may want some vindication. But I suspect that desire will be outweighed by the pleasant life of presidential retirement and speaking to adoring audiences on shut-down college campuses while his wife vacations somewhere else.

Obama has no history of accomplishment. He outsourced ObamaCare and Porkulus to incompetent ReidPelosi. Arab Spring has turned into Arab Winter. He claim credit for following W's game plan after Iraq War was won. Afghanistan has turned into a quaymire, losses have multiplied. He has wasted money on his green energy cronies. Fracking was a success because he was unable to stop it.

The one consolation I have for enduring the last four years is the anticipation of just how history is going to judge not only President Obama's career, but the actions of the Democratic party over the last decade.

I think that the job itself is pretty hard, and the President is just not used to hard work. Just look how it aged his predecessors. The worry, and long schedules, at least for most other Presidents. But, this one tends to get started late, and not do much running of the country - as evidenced by his typical daily schedule, and his failure to attend maybe half of his Presidential Daily Briefings.

On the other hand, the perks are great. Two private 747s, multiple helicopters, the big house in D.C. with the servants, the retreat (that he never uses) at Camp David, the Marine Band, motorcades everywhere else. And, losing would be failure, and Obama is not used to failure.

So, while he may not enjoy doing the limited amount of his job that he actually does, he doesn't want to lose, and he doesn't want to lose all those nice perks.

Perhaps someone else has already suggested this, but I haven't read it anywhere.

My first thought during the debate was that the president is taking antidepressant medication.

No shame in that - likely other presidents have been clinically depressed (Lincoln, for example).

But this would explain a lot, I think. It's odd that the left tried to mock Ann Romney for saying that her main concern if her husband wins the election would be his mental health, when it seems rather clear that this is what any wife should be concerned about, particularly the current First Lady.

I think he genuinely has an interest in changing society, but not as an American president would do. He would be very happy as a South American caudillo. He doesn't want to convince people, or argue, or be opposed. I think his ego is too fragile for that. So, he enjoyed it for a while while he had Congress on his side. Like with Schwarzenegger, however, he lost the interest when people didn't just fall in line.

I think he really likes Bill Clinton's job now. Making a whole lot of money giving speeches and hanging out with all the fancy important folks, tickling their ears with pretty thoughts about helping poor people.

Which isn't surprising since that really was his expertise before becoming president.

The trouble is that fragile egos may not enjoy something but they have trouble giving something up directly if they think that letting go would shine a bad light on them.

Obama's ego is too large for him to abandon the race now. If his supporters learn that he is content to lose the race then his future political career is over. Power is a stern mistress and she does not suffer fools lightly. Win or go hime.

The Democratic Party has younger contenders who are ambitious and competent: The Governnor of NY, the mayors of NYC, Chicago and Los Angeles, Ed Rendell, O'Malley and Mrs Clinton just to name a few. If he quits now the knives will be out and there will be no forgiveness for not winning. Ask Mondal, Dukkis and Muskie about how the DNC treats losers of the Presidential race.

So no I think Obama knows that he has to soldier on. if only to protect AG Holder from a special investigation.

Blogger must be hinkey again with the double postings. If your comment showed up twice, go to one of the duplicates and delete it (a trash can symbol should appear when you move your cursor over your comment.

The Democratic Party has younger contenders who are ambitious and competent: The Governnor of NY, the mayors of NYC, Chicago and Los Angeles, Ed Rendell, O'Malley and Mrs Clinton just to name a few

The mayor of NYC is not a Democrat, nor is he young.Hillary Clinton is in her 60'sEd Rendell is not youngThe mayor of Chicago is by no means "competent" and the Gov of NY is governing a state that is almost insolvent as has a net population loss over the last 10 years.

The other theory is that Obama's done the hard work of laying the groundwork for a durable, effective recovery, while bearing the brunt of the opprobrium for the lingering effects of the Bush recession. And that Romney desperately wants nothing more than to coast off the coat-tails of what comes next.

That theory has the virtue of actually being likely.

You guys can slap yourselves on the back by voting for the guy who wants nothing more than approval for you to cut his own taxes. Who knows, maybe you'll get a free ride in his garage elevator, to boot!

Ritmo, it's foolish to even talk to you. I'll grant that, so I'll comment and then go for a bicycle ride so that I don't have to endure your fulminating nonsense.

Romney has a lifetime of hard executive experience.

That's precisely what we need.

Giving the Fed more money (increasing taxes) is so wildly stupid that only you could consider it. We just endured the bipartisan ripoff that was the mortgage/banking scandal. Biggest ripoff in human history.

Giving the Fed more money is lunatic. The same ripoff artists are in residence. If you give them more money, they'll just stuff it in their pockets, like last time.

Yes, "he doesn't really want the job" is the second excuse. The first was offered up by Andrew Sullivan -- he blew the debate by not preparing enough, or John Kerry blew it by not adequately preparing him for Mitt Romney.

This second is a bit more subtle. Obama blew the debate -- even his most devout supports (and I chose the word "devout" deliberately) concede that, and he was underprepared. But in this version he was underprepared because he's all worn out, poor fellow, and tired of not being appreciated enough for all he's done for us.

You notice that it's not the utter failure of his economic policies to address unemployment. You notice that it's never a foreign policy that has finally united Arab and Israeli in a mutual disdain for the United States. It cannot be a dead ambassador carried through the streets after asking for -- and being denied -- additional security. No way that it has anything to do with $4.00 a gallon gasoline and food prices climbing (the latter is a consequence of the drought -- bad luck -- but even more so a consequence of the former). If inflation were still calculated the way it was when Carter was president, Carter's famous "misery index" would be at least as bad for this president as it was for Carter.

And it certainly is not that the closer we get to Obamacare becoming the law of the land, and the more we find out about it, the less the ordinary citizens like it.

You know. We could of saved ourselves 4 years national stupidity if we just gave the Obamster and Michelle the presidential perks and elected someone who was qualified for the job.I know 20-20 hindsight.

He is also throwing out some bullshit of "total income" of a low-earning group -- probably because comparing actual wages before and after wouldn't help his attempt to confuse himself and obfuscate what everyone else already knew.

Whatever chattering class leftists tell each other in their Georgetown or Upper West Side cocktail parties to make the debate evidence go away, millions without an ax to grind saw what they saw: that without a teleprompter Obama is reduced to cliched responses to inconvenient facts. That he's a vacuity, a nothingness. This the millions will remember. No the cobbled together fiction that he doesn't want the job.

They saw a shameless liar suddenly decide that he was going to switch positions on everything, endorse nearly every one of Obama's points, claim the mantle of moderate and the middle, and smarmily threaten to fire the moderator. All while failing every bit of math involved.

If Obama did any of this, you'd call him "an angry black man". But Romney's lack of any principles is now the only qualification that Republicans bother to seek in a candidate anymore.

If Ritmo were an honest commentator, he would have provided a link to the particular page of the very large Census Bureau site where he claims to have found his very dubious figures, or at least have told us whether the supposed numbers are for individual, family, or household income.

"You know. We could of saved ourselves 4 years national stupidity if we just gave the Obamster and Michelle the presidential perks and elected someone who was qualified for the job."

I thought that of Reagan back in the day when I voted Dem and was frustrated with Reagan's good communication skills: Let Reagan be a symbolic king, but we'll get someone competent to actually run the country.

But that was when I was young and foolish. Prominent Dems to "run the country" were the likes of Carter and Mondale. Hahaha. How embarrassing to think back on it.

Not that I'd doubt that someone with an avatar of stick figures with guns would listen to reason, but why are people attacking Obama's ability to debate? How did he do in 2008's primaries or against McCain's, again? Remind me?

That group wasn't obsessed with trying to get him to lose his cool. But when you lie as spontaneously and aggressively as Romney did, that's hard to avoid. Obama deserves kudos for putting off the human reaction to what someone as inhuman as Romney did.

Anyway, Weevil, here you go. Can't vouch for the accuracy of the aggregating site, but then, we're talking about a debate with Jay here. His stats are about as realistic as Alice in Wonderland, and delivered with all the demanding gusto and reason of The Queen of Hearts.

O Ritmo Segundo said...The other theory is that Obama's done the hard work of laying the groundwork for a durable, effective recovery, while bearing the brunt of the opprobrium for the lingering effects of the Bush recession.

I'm still trying to figure out how this "theory" addresses the question of whether Obama really wants to be president, but it does seem to call for a new tag: Obama is like GHW Bush.

Well, Chip. This question of whether someone "wants" to be president is about a thousand times stupider than asking WHY each candidate wants to be president. But you know me, assuming better faith than reasoning ability on the part of people I disagree with. That doesn't stop me from understanding that Mitt wants the presidency so that he can cut HIS OWN taxes, whereas Obama doesn't. It passes the honesty test.

Anyway, pity about W's dad - he was a better man than the coterie that surrounded his son and degenerated both his legacy and that of his party. The comparison you came up with is not the worst charge you could level at Obama, assuming you prefer prudence to recklessness.

Only two weeks after he was sworn in, President Obama already had to get away.

With little notice, the president and first lady Michelle Obama bolted the gated compound of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in their tank of a limousine on Tuesday. They ended up at a Washington public school, greeted by children who could not care less about the collapse of a Cabinet secretary nomination.

"We were just tired of being in the White House," the president candidly told the gleeful second-graders at Capital City Public Charter School.

"We got out! They let us out!" Mrs. Obama said as the kids and their teachers laughed.

In addition to not liking the White House, apparently President Obama does not even like going to the Oval Office. You know, to maybe do his job? And this despite the fact that he has cranked up the heat to turn the Oval Office into a greenhouse, apparently that is his idea of a green initiative (while people in Kentucky freeze to death, literally).

MATTHEWS: Brian, you‘ve been in the room with other presidents going back several years, now, in different capacities as a news person. Did you have any sort of reading on the atmospherics? It‘s warmer in there, literally warmer in that Oval Office now.

WILLIAMS: It is incredibly warm there. HVAC must be working extra hard on it. Because it was a real complaint he had coming in. Then we had lights on, today. It was like a terrarium in there. Number two, Chris, you‘ve been in there a lot as well. The detritus of the presidency is not there. I actually wrote on my blog today if I had to guess, looks like he‘s not using the Oval, certainly not for day to day work yet. No tchockes, no family photos. Nothing on the credenza. He hasn‘t picked out all his artwork yet. Those dishes still in the cabinets. He said on the record he‘s not a dish guy. Remember, he also hasn‘t used Marine One, Air Force One or Camp David yet. He just discovered the bowling alley a few nights back. They have -— Say what you will about the quality of the work and the policies but they have devoted as many waking hours to just working without settling in as arguably any modern presidency apparently.

What a liar Ritmo is. He claimed (10:08am) he was quoting statistics from the "U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Survey", but when I asked for a link, it turned out (10:35am) that he was actually quoting without attribution some leftwing site that also claims to be quoting the CPS, but gives no specific link, just a general hand-waving reference to the site as a whole.

So, should we believe statistics found at www.huppi.com? I went to their front page to see who they were, and found at the very top a quotation from "Petronius Arbiter" that anyone who has ever read a page of Petronius would know is a fake - entirely unlike his writings in substance and style. There was no need to read further. Whoever runs www.huppi.com is obviously a complete sucker for fake quotations, and there is therefore no reason to believe any linkless statistics they offer, and good reason to presume that they are just as fraudulent as the quotation until actual evidence is offered to back them up.

That's not a lie, Weevil. I told you I had my concerns about the site - so feel free to find your own stats and attribute them also. Fighting potentially bad evidence with no evidence is not a fight - it's a performance.

Not to take anything away from Romney (who I think was brilliant), but I think there was some strategy on the part of the Obama team. Two debates to go and the President is now the underdog. I think Obama pulled his punches and waited out the clock. The proof will come in the next debate. Let's see which Obama shows up.

If you want something that seems a heck of a lot more credible Weevil (and jibes with my own memory), try this one. It largely corroborates the widely-held understanding that income growth has been flat for most in the last 35 years or so (constituting a decline from previous, post-industrial standards), while growing much more handsomely for the Romney set.

Actually, Ritmo, you told me you had concerns about the site after I asked for your evidence. Your 10:08 comment showed no doubts about the numbers and no hint that they were secondhand. Which gives it a strong resemblance to a lie.

And I don't need to find my own numbers because I was in the workforce all of the years 1979-92, plus a few more before that and all the years since. I was never in the top quintile, and worked with a whole lot of other people who were in the bottom four quintiles, and the numbers are obviously absurd. They're as unbelievable as the Petronius 'quotation', so I don't need to refute them, you need to come up with some evidence backing them up. 'I found them on some site even I can't claim is trustworthy' isn't good enough.

At least two other, credible, authoritative charts and data streams apparently can't compete with Weevil's claim that "He is EVERYMAN", so the exercise was all in vain anyway. Talk about disingenuous. I don't think you're in the position to do so -- after you go for a couple rounds pretending that it's the quality of the data that you're out for.

Yes, someone as disingenuous as Romney must be your man, after that. But then, you're not even in the top quintile so he considers you inferior to him and your vote not worthy of courting. But he provides an excellent example for your extremely, shall we say, fickle and selective regard for facts. But hey, you speak for everyone, why bother? We should all just ask you what reality is because, you are all-seeing and all-knowing.

Now Ritmo provides links to sites that measure changes in family income over time. Apparently he's never heard (or doesn't care) that changes in the divorce rate make such numbers highly misleading.

Here's a very simple example: if John and Mary are married to each other and making $30,000 / year each, and then 10 years later they're divorced and not remarried and making $40,000 / year each (adjusted for inflation), their actual total income is up by a quarter, but their average family income has gone down by a third (from 60k to 40k), because they're now two families instead of one.

Any statistics that purport to measure national prosperity over multiple decades by counting family income are worthless when the composition of the average family is rapidly changing.

And anyone who wants to argue about changes in the American economy should know that.

Everyone disagreed that the premise of Obama "not wanting the job" was stupid anyway, STD - including YOU. So who knows why you're bitching. From your first comment you managed to change the subject to your own pet project of diversity hatred. But that can't be as junky as what interests anyone else. No, no one can compete with Shouting's shiny turds. No siree.

P.S. I never claimed to be all-seeing and all-knowing, but I do know some extremely basic things about economics that most interested people know that Ritmo apparently does not. Nor do I have any reason at all to think that Romney despises me, or that Obama does not despise me.

Ok so by Weevil's accounting, household statistics are meaningless. Which gets us back to Square #1: No knowledge. What a progression. I feel so edified.

Don't suppose you ever considered that changing household compositions and labor force participation affect what employees feel they should demand of an employer, or what an employer feels they could get away with paying? Yes, markets can get subtle, complicated and tricky.

But if your solution is just to make widespread marriage at an early age the default social standard, then why even bother discussing economics? If you do, you should at least try to assume an empiric and non-normative approach.

No one cares, Shouty. Go tell it to the website you were banned from. Or write a song that no one will buy about it. Or at least have the decency to remember what your once better half told you. Just shut up about topics you are too dumb (but too proud) to know whether you have any appreciable impact on or anything worth saying. Or go bitch about Woodstock. Or ride a bike, (while taking care to preserve your penile circulation).

Again, these things qualify you for anything but commenting intelligibly about politics. How that should be my problem is anyone's guess.

Ritmo lies again. I have never suggested that the "solution is just to make widespread marriage at an early age the default", though I do think this country would be better off with a lower divorce rate. Who doesn't?

And I do think if you want to judge the relative economic success of different presidents you should definitely use individual income statistics, rather than families, for the reason stated, which Ritmo doesn't show any sign of understanding.

Of course, Ritmo is only interested in judging the relative economic success of different presidents if he can find some statistics, real or fake, that will make the Democrats look good and the Republicans look bad. I suppose I should be grateful that he's aimed his foul obscenities at others so far on this thread.

Weevil, you're free at any time to show me the statistics that you find meaningful. The fact that you haven't shows that you're the one who's not interested in the discussion.

I will stop inferring anything about you at this point because you are clearly not interested in an actual argument or debate.

Shouty, OTOH, is finding new and creative ways to wave his decrepit, old dick at me. That's not that much more interesting, but I do find some mild, if sick, amusement at seeing how far he'll push himself.

I assert that Obama has no stomach for true politics. Like many Democrats and a few Republicans, Obama truly believed the "Imperial Presidency" accusations against Bush. He genuinely believed that being president meant ordering people around and getting what you wanted. Obama immediately learned this wasn't the case.

Related to this, Obama never did much of anything anyway--pretty much everything was handed to him with no accountability.

So, Obama did what he always does; he turned everything over to "advisers" and went golfing.

I think there was some strategy on the part of the Obama team. Two debates to go and the President is now the underdog. I think Obama pulled his punches and waited out the clock.

I've heard this reasoning -- sometimes under the heading of "rope-a-dope" -- but I don't get it. People have been explaining Obama's flaccid execution this way since his inauguaration in 2009.

If Obama could have leveled Romney in that debate or even held his own solidly that would have been the end of the Romney campaign (assuming the polls aren't totally bitched this year).

Most of Obama's recent advantage is the perception, which the media has been constantly hammering away, that Obama will win and that's that. When Romney blew Obama off the stage this week, that advantage was crippled and it won't come back. Obama is going to have to work to win now.

I think we saw Obama as he is and always has been -- a lazy, incurious politician who relies on a cartoon leftist worldview, emotional appeals, strawman attacks, white guilt, adoring audiences and a deeply biased media to put him over.

Carniflex - Says the guy backing the guy who is "not" dancing on Osama's grave, shooting missiles up the ass of American citizens, and arresting the producers of internet videos. Oh! Chris Stevens raped corpse wants to have a word with you.

1. Everyone is dancing on the grave of Binnie. Obama though, has been doing a little too much dancing and hogging the achievement to himself.

2. Only a few Sacred Parchment Venerators on the right and the usual liberal and progressive Jewish suspects at the ACLU have any problem killing a US traitor in the company of the enemy. As opposed to Mirandizing him or sayi ng we must keep hands off because the enemy won't let our cops come in on a civilian lawyers warrant to arrest him.Put it this way - any country wants traitors who went over to the enemy side dead, and it is left to the military to target them. 95% of people from both Parties would order a Hellfire launched on US citizen Adam Gada, AQ spokesman, if found. And the military tasked with whacking him would carry out the order with glee.

3. When you are a conman who should be deported as an undesirable resident alien...and on probation for internet fraud and identity theft...best avoid doing the thing that got you in jail, or if you did, avoid drawing undue attention to yourself. You go to jail for injuring people badly while DWI and the terms of your parole say no drinking - avoid alcohol. Certainly do not get caught on the news catching a star's 500th homer in one hand while holding a huge cup of beer in the other which you the quaff in celebration with all the beer drinkers around you also in love with Baseball, Freedom!!

4. Gullible people latch onto rape stories and cannibal stories with abandon. The Ambassador was raped. Nazi enlisteds doing bad things in Russia testified that their officers told them Jews ate the flesh of young boys they sodomized. Jessica Lynch was gang -raped

Poor Ritmo doesn't seem to get it. He's the one who thought we needed some statistics to prove some point that he was trying to make that had nothing to do with the subject of the thread. I pointed out that his statistics were not only misleadingly introduced, as if he had found them himself, but worthless in themselves because they measure the wrong thing. Now he wants me to do his homework for him by providing better statistics. Why should I? He's the one trying to make a stupid point look less stupid with bogus statistics. I'd just as soon stick to the subject of the original post, which he seems desperate to avoid.

No amount of debate prep is going to put Obama into form to take on Romney, especially not on foreign policy after Benghazi...So they will try something else.

Yes, they will. Obama will righteously (can I get an Amen?) defer to the future. Secretary of State Clinton has already formally advised Congress that a committee has been formed to determine IF there was any security failure in Benghazi.

And Ritmo lies again: the subject of this thread was never "Obama not wanting to use the presidency for the sole purpose of cutting his own taxes" and no honest person could possibly claim it was.

And of course he is well aware that I called his statistics "bogus" not because they are false in themselves but specifically (as I wrote in the previous sentence) "because they measure the wrong thing" and therefore do not prove what he pretended they proved. They became bogus when he quoted them as if he had found them himself to prove something that is not true. What a disgusting liar Ritmo is.

Are you autistic? Claiming that Obama doesn't want to be president is so ridiculous on its face that it is impossible not to compare it to the Romney-esque alternative: Wanting to be president in order to enact taxation policies desirable only to yourself. It's why he wants it soooo badly.

You are not doing justice to the image of the 47% of voters to whom Romney would like to suddenly (at least in public) ingratiate himself.

Don't worry, Ritmo, I'm laughing every time I read something you write. Too bad I'm laughing at you, not with you.

Your explanation for why Romney wants to be president is obviously false. He could make far more money doing what he did at Bain for a few more years than he could ever make by diddling the tax laws to reduce the government claim on what he's already made. Try doing a little back-of-the-envolope math on this one and see if you can come to the opposite conculsion.

And try imagining that there might (hypothetically) be some people in the world who would want to be president not for personal advantage but because they think their policies will be good for their country. And then consider whether a guy who didn't accept a salary as governor of Massachusetts, or to run the Salt Lake City Olympics, and who gives huges sums to charity, might just possibly be one of those people who is more motivated by an urge to do good than an urge to make money, especially since he already has plenty of money. If you're not autistic yourself, you might just possibly be able to imagine that.

If doing good = donating to the Mormon church, Weevil, then I'm interested in seeing where your charitable contributions are (or would be) directed. Certainly not toward one particular, and powerful, sectarian organization, but rather toward more ecumenical purposes, right? Unless you think that only members of certain sects are worthy of being treated charitably - and only as defined by that organization.

I prefer someone who thinks for himself and contributes charitably to his fellow man regardless of how that man affiliates with imaginary beings on other planets. But maybe that's just me. It also gives me more faith in that person's true and openly stated motivations.

"I'm running for office, for Pete's sake!" -- Not the words of someone who would value moral action, for its own sake, over arbitrary legal and theological dictates.

Yes, Romney cares about his "reputation". But he certainly isn't a strong enough leader to identify the principles that should define the character he wishes to independently create.

He is a tool. And he does what he's told by others. For better or worse.

I think that Obama just can't debate. His answers rambled and did not address the question asked. He couldn't stay in the time limit. He even recapped Romney's points more than once in case people were forgetting them. Also I think he hasn't been working; leaving the work to the women since 2008; just campaigning and playing golf since June.

Finally, I think the African-American community is fed up and not interested in the excuses the spin doctors are thinking up [see O Ritmo Segundo's comments above] Bob Herbert has an interesting article on how Obama has let the African-Americans down - Obama has not concentrated on jobs and this group is hit hardest by unemployment. Rising prices also hit this group hardest. Herbert says: "There is always some excuse, some reason for not bringing all of the president's energy and resources to the fight. ...The president let his people down. And if he's capable of doing that in an election that is clearly so important, it means he's capable of doing it again if he wins a second term." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-herbert/no-more-excuses_b_1941156.html

Ritmo avoids admitting that he's been refuted by changing the subject again, and throws in his usual stupid stupid insults.

It's none of his damned business, but I will answer his personal question anyway, just to underline what a contemptible fool he is. My main charitable contribution last year was $1500 to my local Shakespeare Theater to be show sponsor of Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great. As far as I can tell, all the other show sponsors and season sponsors were doctors, lawyers, and businessmen. I was a high school teacher, so it was probably a higher percentage of my take-home pay than any of them gave. I also promised to sponsor Tamburlaine, Part II if they ever put it on. That's the one where the title character burns a Koran on stage. Did I mention that Marlowe was a gay atheist? Ritmo's imputation that I either don't give to charity, or give only to "powerful sectarian organization[s]" is yet another of his disgusting falsehoods, of a piece with his stupid sneer at religion.

Ritmo puts a new twist on an old saying: sometimes, on the Internet, everyone can tell you're a dog.

Geez Mr Weevil - I'd have thought you'd bristle at the idea of distinguishing your love of culture and non-sectarian charity from Mitt Romney's. But apparently you're ok with doing so. As long as you blame me for pointing that distinction out.

Good job!

While you're at it, what else would you like to blame on me? The economy? The drought this summer? The extinction of the dinosaurs?

Unlike you, Ritmo, I only blame people for things they actually do. In your case, that means lying, changing the subject and pretending that you haven't been refuted when you have, lying again, lowering the quality of every comment thread on which you appear, and lying yet again. That's more than enough blame for one (technically) human being, don't you think? Why do you lie so much? For example, why do you pretend that someone who gives money to a Shakespeare Theater is somehow obligated to despised someone else for giving to a church? You can't possibly be stupid enough to believe there's any contradiction, can you? And why don't you tell us what charities (if any) you give money to?

Finally, you're not being paid by Romney and Ryan to make their opponents look like dirty dogs, are you? Because you sure as Hell aren't winning Obama any friends around here, or yourself any respect at all.

I don't think Obama will win any friends here. People have their minds made up and have viewed him as evil incarnate basically from Day #1.

My own giving generally centers around environmental and microlending interests. Sometimes they are not mutually exclusive to my own interests. I opened an account at a credit union, because I think investment in my own community is important; I also think devolving power financially to people is important, as is preserving the natural and cultural infrastructure that we need and thrive off of. I've given to politicians, to my alma mater (supporting scholarships), and often to a local bum or two. Sometimes with just a doggie bag, but whatever gets someone through the night - that's my philosophy. I make conscious decisions to shop at farmer's markets; this supports smaller scale operations (i.e. "smaller" businessmen), environmental protection, tastier food and the regional economy.

I've gotten annual memberships at the local art museum and have considered memberships at other cultural organizations - local theater companies, etc. I give to public radio.

When you come to think of it, a lot of this might make me sound more like a conservative. I guess that, in that way, I am. Bigger is not always, or even usually, better.

I don't know anyone who'd define changing a subject as lying. I do it with you so often because so often you end up missing the point.

So Ritmo changes the subject with me because I keep missing the point? Yet another bald-faced lie from filthy liar Ritmo.

He said that Romney only wants to be president to lower his own taxes, which clearly implies that he thinks Romney is only motivated by money. I pointed out that someone motivated purely or primarily by money (a) would go back to earning tens of millions at Bain rather than run for president, (b) would not have worked for free at his last two jobs, and (c) would not have given millions to charity. An honest person would either have replied "Jeez, maybe Romney isn't purely motivated by money" or tried to refute my argument. What did Ritmo do? He ignored all three points, grabbed onto a tangential aspect of the third, and sneered at Romney because most of his charitable contributions were to his church, as if that had anything to do with the argument. When you change the subject so blatantly just to avoid admitting that you've been refuted, that seems to me to be tantamount to a lie.

Oh look! Ritmo finally admits that Romney is not motivated purely by money, but doesn't have the grace to admit that he was wrong in saying so and I was right. And he thinks I'm the being humiliated by "long-winded non-concession"?

Now Romney is "motivated by religious causes" and "his church" is "the nearly exclusive, if not sole recipient" of his charity. Another easily-refuted falsehood. If you Bing "Romney charitable contributions" the very first hit is a Huffington Post story from 8/11/11 about how most of his contributions are to his church. But even when they include contributions to Brigham Young as contributions to his church, they find that 21% of his $5,854,916 in charitable contributions in 2002-2009 was to non-church charities, including Harvard Business School, the Boy Scouts, the Boys and Girls Club of Boston, a homeless shelter, Katrina victims, wounded veterans, "service organizations for multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, cancer, epilepsy, Lou Gehrig's Disease and AIDS" . . . the list goes on. So the LDS church is not in fact the "sole" or even the "nearly exclusive" recipient of his largesse. In those eight years, he gave more than $1,200,000 to non-church recipients. That's a lot of money, even if it's a lot less than he gave to his church.

So is Ritmo (a) ignorant of the meaning of common words like 'sole' and 'exclusive', (b) too lazy to spend even 30 seconds researching the facts before posting, or (c) a bald-faced liar? Not all possibilities are mutually exclusive.

That's a lot of money, even if it's a lot less than he gave to his church.

And that latter part is what matters. Comparing 1 million of your money (if you ever had that much) to 1 million of Romney's is like comparing peanuts to pennies to oranges. Worthless.

Anyway, you seem to have gotten pretty rabid on this thread. You seem to want some kind of vindication for it, no matter how empty, so just go ahead and declare yourself the "winner" (Charlie Sheen style) by default. Whooooo Boy! Awesome and stupendous.

And consider that Romney's principle concerns might be monetary as well as theological, but that I only think it's necessary to point out the monetary shallowness in showing him to be unfit for the presidency. Let your guys like Crack hammer on about how he thinks his church is a "cult". I don't go there, and I don't care. But I do acknowledge that it's a huge focus of his and doesn't broaden the scope of his poor hold on humanity much better than his obsession with money does.

There's a difference between supporting institutions and supporting the principles that give us reason to respect those institutions. Many people were not very happy with his actions as a church leader, but I'll let those people speak on their own to his priorities and concern (or lack thereof) for them.

Only a liar or a fool could say that I've gotten "rabid" on this thread. I've offered rational arguments that Ritmo has been utterly unable or unwilling to answer rationally and honestly. Now he passively-agressively pretends that he's only giving up out of kindness rather than because he was in fact wrong on every issue raised. Does he know the meaning of "sole" or "exclusive"? I guess we'll never know.

President Obama was trying not to win the debate on purpose. Mitt Romney is toast in the next 2 debates. In The 1st debate President Obama was feeding Mitt Romney that rope and he fell for it hook line and sinker. President Obama knows Romney lies all the time and he would tell plenty of lies at the debate and that's just what he did. Now all the lies Romney told in the debate Biden will take them right to Ryan And Biden Will Crush Ryan In Their Debate, That's One To Watch, I bought a big bag of popcorn for this beat down.

He wont be back in 2016. He is deeply disappointed in America. He really believed - remember that he once confessed to believing his own bullshit - that he had a mandate for fundamental transformation and change. That the American people back home in the districts would pressure their Congressmen - Reps and Dems alike - to follow the leadership of the President and support his agenda.

He thought that charisma was sufficient and discovered to his dismay that he had actually to work and fight for his agenda and thats something completely at odds with his self-image and simply beneath him. He disovered that there cannot be a leftwing Reagan, because the point of Reagan was that he was in sync with America, something a leftwinger can never be.

So no, he doesnt want the job anymore and if he loses he would never stage a comeback.